[Definitely an interesting report. Note, it is a free report from MGI.]]

Security's House of Credit Cards

“As a third-party payment processor for MasterCard, Visa and American Express, CardSystems had access to vast amounts of customer data—most of which it was not supposed to keep on its servers but, rather, discard after transaction processing. In addition, much of the data was stored unencrypted, despite the credit card companies' requirements to the contrary.”

“In the same way that manufacturing and business realized that optimization required refining supply chain operations, entities must extend their risk management practices into the value chain and create managed risk chains wherein a given risk chain is the combination of entities that are coupled together to achieve common objectives.”

“The Data Governance Council includes vendors, corporate IT customers, VARs, integrators and technology consultants who meet each quarter to exchange ideas and experiences about how they deal with information security, privacy and compliance …”

“But as the number of U.S. companies with operations in India increased, so did India's wages, personnel turnover and delivery problems, prompting clients to seek alternatives. China, the Philippines, Russia, Poland, and Israel now are seen as growing alternatives for outsourcing.”

“The benefits of executing a hacker would be greater, he argues, because the social costs of hacking are estimated to be so much higher: $50 billion per year. Deterring a mere one-fifth of 1 percent of those crimes - one in 500 hackers - would save society $100 million. And Professor Landsburg believes that a lot more than one in 500 hackers would be deterred by the sight of a colleague on death row.”

“The European Union is split over how to introduce a law requiring phone and Internet usage records to be stored to help fight terrorism in the wake of the London bombings, an EU official said on Monday.”

“The standard has already prompted a wave of security audits and updates among credit card processors, online merchants and service providers. But some industry insiders warn that enforcing the regulations among thousands of small merchants will be a challenge.”

“A study of cellphone use by motorists suggests that they aren't any better off using a headset in the car than holding the phone to their ear: They're still four times more likely to end up in a crash and injured than if they weren't using the phone.”

Thursday, July 14th

The vision must be followed by the venture. It is not enough to stare up the steps - we must step up the stairs.” – Vance Havne

The Picks of the Day

PCAOB: 12% of cos. below SOX standard

“Better than one in every eight U.S. corporations that have undergone the more rigorous audits mandated by the Sarbanes-Oxley Act during the past year have been flagged for ineffective internal controls over their financial reporting, officials at the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board disclosed during a recent meeting with the organization's Standing Advisory Group.”

“Companies need to examine and update their policies and technologies for managing rising volumes of once-secret information that can be retrieved without authorization by insiders and outsiders alike, according to strategy consultant and author Don Tapscott in a recent Gartner Fellows Interview.”

“The project's goal is to deconstruct the requirements of the major corporate regulations -- including Sarbanes-Oxley, Basel II, HIPAA, and Gramm-Leach-Bliley -- and present them in a holistic IT compliance view that exposes commonalities across compliance efforts.”

“Despite its plans to closely monitor deadly malfunctions and misuses of medical devices through a new computer reporting system, the Food and Drug Administration has frozen the project in place well short of its goal of connecting 500 hospitals.”

“Economists say this trend underscores the downside of globalization: While free trade has proved highly efficient in generating wealth, it has failed to share the spoils, intensifying gaps between rich and poor, urban and rural. In many instances, new wealth is coming at the direct expense of the poor as local governments sell off land for development projects.”

Cutter Consortium: Does the EU Share or Compound Global Threats to U.S. Economic and Technology Power Base?

“Cutter Consortium analysts debate the degree of threat the EU poses to U.S. economic and technology market leadership in the latest opinion issued by Cutter Consortium's Business Technology Trends and Impacts advisory service. On one hand, Cutter Consortium Fellow Tom DeMarco asserts an economic power shift from the U.S. to Europe is now gaining steam and promises to have a far-reaching effect on the world technology sector. Several of his colleagues disagree.”

Friday, July 15th

"There are always more smart people outside your company than within it.” – Bill Joy

The Picks of the Day

Gates warns against reliance on outsourcing

“Companies should not outsource their core business functions and staff, Microsoft Chairman and Chief Software Architect Bill Gates told a group of Japan's top businessmen in a speech in Tokyo on Wednesday.”

“Customers who preordered the eagerly anticipated sixth installment of the Harry Potter saga on Amazon.com and Walmart.com were in for a shock this week when the retailers mistakenly e-mailed them to say their books might arrive later than expected.”

“If students in emerging countries have real opportunities--say, in IT--they're likely to spend more time training for such careers and less time learning how to make bombs as pawns of radical imams and other demagogues who, for their own purposes, prey on the weak and the hopeless, offering promises of eternal happiness if you'll just please blow yourself and a few hundred Westerners to smithereens.”

“Because Cisco's gear handles every bit of data, they can track everything happening on the network. That's fine when they're used in a business that needs to protect trade secrets. But in a country where every data network is owned by the state, Cisco gear could give the government a chokehold on information.”